I think it's too soon to be honest, if p7 do a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ job and enough people complain because the servers really is bad, I think MAIET could easily cancel the contract and open the servers on Steam. This is if things don't go according to plan. But we'll see what happens.

Im actually surprised why they won't get steam as publisher and just let EU players play on EU servers while US gonna play on US... that's how they do it in BlackLight for example, guild wars, APB, many other games do it too.

In regards to alaplaya / P7S1 Games...Making the game Pay to Win is on the Developer.

Most publishing agreements (including Audition and S4 League--and in the case of ijji and AeriaGames: Gunz) prohibit the publisher from making any changes to the game without the developer's approval. This includes anything sold for real-world Cash. The publisher can't adjust the prices without the developer's consent.